In the past, film processing has been accomplished in a variety of ways with a large variety of equipment which is both massive and costly. Such equipment has been utilized, for instance, for processing x-ray films of all sizes from dental x-rays to chest x-rays. While the size and complexity of the equipment in part depends upon the size of the film processed, a relatively efficient film processing machine utilizes processing chambers which are formed by elongated rollers in rolling contact one with the other. Such a device is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,057,282 issued to Benjamin Ellen Luboshez on Oct. 9, 1962. In this patent, a fluid-tight film treating device includes a chamber bounded on two sides by parallel end plates and circumferentially by four or greater even numbers of rollers, each in rolling line contact with its two neighbors and all rotatable about parallel axes so that a strip or sheet of material may be passed between pairs of rollers at the nip thereof, and may be moved into and out of the chamber without substantial leakage of fluid from the chamber.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,688 entitled Automatic Photographic Film Processor and Fluid-Tight Seals Therefor, a system of end plate sealing is described in which leakage at the end plates of the rolls is eliminated.
With this background established, it will be noted that a complete unit for the processing of x-ray films or the like, should include efficient means for loading, further leakage prevention, film drying and preventing of chemical oxidation for the developers and fixing materials in the system reservoirs. The incorporation of these features into the machine is needed to retain and exploit the novel advantages of the basic processing concept outlined above, notably compact size, simplicity and lack of exposure of the chemicals to the atmosphere. Moreover, when dental x-rays are processed in order to accomodate the small size of the x-ray negatives, the entire system must be miniaturized.